[00:00:01] Madeline: Hello and welcome to SHE SOARS. Her Voice. Her Rights.

[00:00:05] Amal: We are CARE Canada’s Youth Champions, a group of young people across Canada who are passionate advocates for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR).

[00:00:13] Lauren: We’re excited to discuss and raise awareness about young women’s rights and choices in Kenya, Uganda and Zambia.

[00:00:20] Amal: Together, we will explore how these global issues connect to our lives as Canadian youth and discover ways in which we can all take action.

[00:00:27] Lauren: We will also talk about the SHE SOARS* project, which improves access to health and education, which are areas we want to see change in.

[00:00:34] Everyone: Join us!

[00:00:37] Mishika: Welcome back to the SHE SOARS podcast. My name is Mishika and I’m one of the Youth Champions. This is actually my first time being on a podcast episode. I’m mainly on the social media side raising awareness here in Canada so I’m looking forward to the discussion today. Last episode, we spoke with Karen and Rodrigo from Yorktown Family Services’ Mindful Fathering Program, who shared the importance of engaging men and boys.

[00:01:04] Today, we will discuss how men and boys are engaged in activities through the SHE SOARS project to increase gender equality in Uganda, and the exciting activities that are happening to increase sexual and reproductive health and rights. This episode is leading us into the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence, which is coming up from November 25th to December 10th.

[00:01:25] Men and boys are needed as equal partners and key players in shifting harmful gender norms and attitudes towards women and girls, including gender-based violence. 

[00:01:35] So today we’re joined with Josephine, who is the Gender Coordinator for CARE in Uganda. I will pass it over to her to speak a little bit more about her background and the project. We’re also going to be hearing from Charles, who is a role model boy in the SHE SOARS project in Uganda, through a series of clips. 

[00:01:53] Josephine: Thank you so much, a very good evening from Uganda. As a Gender Coordinator, I find it very interesting to see a woman taking up engaging men and boys. So in the project, one of key areas is identifying and establishing role model boys’ groups – young boys aged nine to 14 and then 15 to 19. So the groups meet once a week, led by a male peer educator, who takes them through the curriculum. Topics like gender-based violence, life skills, conflict management and attitude.

[00:02:28] So participating in the groups is meant to create acceptance for contraceptive views among young people and create awareness for them to get to understand their sexual, reproductive and health rights as young people and where they can get that age-appropriate kind of service.

[00:02:46] So my core role in the project is to lead the selection over the role model boys in the community. It’s a participatory process whereby the community is taken through the selection criteria and their roles and the expected outcomes of their participation in the boys’ groups.

[00:03:05] So in the project, we use youth corners established in every health facility. So it is up to me to create awareness about the availability of these services and where young people can get services in an event that someone is exposed to violence and abuse. We talk about referral service points like health facilities, the legal sector, the traditional court system, the police, and also where they can get psychosocial support.

[00:03:33] So I create awareness through different platforms in the boys’ groups using community dialogues, and events like awareness raising about 16 Days of Activism. My other role is to participate in the development of curriculums and training manuals in the country context for engaging men and boys. So basically, that is my core role in the project.

[00:03:56] Mishika: Thank you so much for sharing that and for joining us. So you touched on this a little bit, but could you please tell us more about your journey so far being involved and the approach that’s taken in the SHE SOARS project?

[00:04:09] Josephine: How I first got involved is that I personally took interest in learning more and implementing this gender transformative approach, which will be able to shift beliefs, norms, and attitudes. Because this is a very strong, transformative model. If we start using it with young people early, it will promote positive parenting and building up a strong father’s legacy.

[00:04:34] It is also responsible for creating awareness about people’s rights and promotion of gender equality and diversity. So it is a very powerful approach, which I just took personal interest in, and I felt I should really implement this model. There are approaches that we do to engage men and boys like couple’s seminars and the household attachment model, whereby one role model man works with about ten households.

[00:05:03] These are households which are affected by gender-based violence, land wrangles, plus other social injustices in the community. So the role of this role model man is to do family counselling, create awareness about violence, positive parenting and educating people about life skills.

[00:05:21] So, it’s a transformative journey. It depends on how someone’s attitude gets transformed. So after these households are monitored, if you see that there is a change, they undergo the graduation phase and share success stories. 

[00:05:35] We also do exchange visits, where a role model boy from a certain district goes to another district to share experiences. So people get to talk about the prevention of sexual harassment and abuse, exchange ideas, and learn from one another. 

[00:05:50] Mishika: Here’s a clip from Charles, who is one of the role model boys.

[00:05:54] Charles: My name is Odipio Charles. I’m a Ugandan. I work with the Naguru Teenage Information and Health Centre as a role model boy on the SHE SOARS project. 

[00:06:05] I really want to share some roles I play as far as engaging men and boys is concerned. Being a role model boy, as I move into these communities, I identify and counsel people I found who have actually been a victim of gender-based violence. Some young people are silently suffering from gender-based violence, but they really fear to speak out because there is no way they can get helped.

[00:06:35] So now when such young people are identified in the communities, I counsel them, and where the situation is beyond my capacity, I refer them to where I think they can be helped easily so that they can get helped and come out of such situations. These are some of the roles I have in the communities.

[00:06:55] Mishika: Thank you so much for sharing. You know, we have seen a lot of pictures of the girls’ and boys’ groups, but it is interesting to hear the activities. So, why is it important to engage men and boys in conversations about gender norms and equality? What kind of contributions can they make?

[00:07:13] Josephine: Okay, first of all, engaging men and boys is very powerful. It’s good for men and boys to get to hear from their colleagues how impactful the transformative journey has been, for example, through experience sharing positive outcomes, someone gets interested.

[00:07:34] Josephine: Then also gender division of labour. Of course there are some traditional household chores, which were initially women-only like cooking food, fetching water and taking care of children, but during experience sharing people talk about participating in these roles.

[00:07:49] You can hear boys saying these days that it is very normal for them to cook food. It is very normal for them to fetch water. Of course, there are still little instances of judgment from community members, but they are really determined to bring about social norms change in the community.

[00:08:07] People get to appreciate the time and resources that a female would invest to see to it that things are up and running in the household. Then of course, it also promotes joint decision-making, which is respected and then taken up by everyone. 

[00:08:22] Mishika: Thank you, Josephine. Here’s Charles again. 

[00:08:25] Charles: It is really important to engage men and boys in a conversation about gender norms and equality because it ensures the timeliness of domestic activities. When a man or boy is involved in doing some domestic work like cooking, it also relieves the workload on the woman or the girl child, enabling her to concentrate on other activities. For instance, when your wife is cooking, you as a man can also take part in other activities like washing clothes. It also relieves the wife and she can get enough time. You find the activities that she was going to take long to complete, she can do in a short time. So that is one of the reasons why men need to be engaged.

[00:09:17] Mishika: Thank you for sharing what kind of contributions men and boys can make in the household. Are there any other factors that we have not covered yet about the curriculum that is used for the role model boys’ groups?

[00:09:29] Josephine: Okay, one strong factor that we normally consider is engagement and parental acceptance of the program. So before mapping out the groups, we normally conduct consultative meetings to create more awareness in the society about what the roles of the groups are going to be.

[00:09:48] Also, while we are developing the boys’ curriculum, we get opinions from parents, caregivers and community gatekeepers because they play a core role in the mobilization of young people to participate in the project.

[00:10:02] In the first six months of rolling out the boys’ curriculum, feedback that we were getting from peer educators and partners who are doing direct implementation for the project, was saying that some of the language used in the curriculum was a bit hard to internalize by young people. So we had to go back and work on some of the sections.

[00:10:25] When they tested it again, they were like, okay, this is now perfect. It can work for young people. So it was good feedback. We believe in consulting and hearing from them.

[00:10:36] Mishika: That’s great to hear that the readjustment made it perfect in terms of curriculum. Here’s Charles again, one of the role model boys. 

[00:10:46] Charles: Once the groups are formed, it makes it easy for me to actually understand each one of the members. I train them using a role model boys’ curriculum. In this training, they are given information that helps them to, first of all, understand who they are in terms of knowing themselves, what their strength and weaknesses are, and what they like and dislike. This information, by the way, is not a formality. For someone to understand something better the first thing is that the person must actually understand properly who he is and this becomes a baseline and it makes it easier to understand and become a role model boy in the communities.

[00:11:40] Mishika: Thank you both for sharing more about the curriculum. That’s really interesting to hear how parents and communities are involved and how boys are encouraged to better understand themselves. So our last question for today is what kind of impacts have you seen on men and boys’ attitudes throughout the project, and also on women, girls and communities?

[00:12:03] Josephine: The SHE SOARS project targets out-of-school adolescent girls and boys. So with the participation in the role model boys’ groups, we have seen a number of boys return to school. 

[00:12:14] Also, with the increased awareness of gender-based violence, boys now have information and seek psychosocial support, medical care, plus any other requirements that are needed. So that really supports so much in young people knowing their Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights in the community.

[00:12:35] Of course, also sharing change stories and lessons learned helps in identifying positive role models. So people aspire to become role model boys. Parents have come out openly to give a vote of thanks and credit to the project for helping young people who had lost hope. There were some who engaged in drug and substance abuse and some other unacceptable behaviours in the community. So participation in the group has helped them so much to curtail some of these bad habits, which they used to engage in through their peers in the community. 

[00:13:09] This approach has really transformed many young people. One strong achievement that I see in the community is that there is acceptance from the community members and the leadership. It is a big contributor to creating impact and sustainability so when the project comes to an end, after seven years, I strongly believe that we will have touched very many lives. We will have contributed to a lot of transformation. 

[00:13:36] Charles: I have some success stories that I want to share with you at this juncture. I got it from one of the young people in the communities I trained.

[00:13:46] This young man, the father came to me recently. He told me that before he joined the group, the son used to not respect him. The son used to not like doing work at home. But in the meantime, when this boy got this opportunity of joining the SHE SOARS project, right now, as he is talking, the behaviour of this boy has changed completely.

[00:14:12] Nowadays that boy is respecting him. Also, the boy is right now doing some domestic work like even collecting firewood for the mother. So one day he was concerned about what the boy was doing because this is not how the boy used to behave.

[00:14:29] But the man was really happy. And as a role model boy, I was also very happy. I took my time and I went out to that family. I found it myself. When I reached there, I found the boy was washing utensils so I was very happy. Very happy.

[00:14:46] So this is what I want to share with you at this time concerning the SHE SOARS project as far as engaging men and boys is concerned. Thank you very much. I want to thank the government of Canada through CARE in Uganda for having brought us such an important project that is really changing the lives of young people in Uganda in various ways. 

[00:15:12] Mishika: Thank you so much for joining us on this episode. Stay tuned for our next episode, where we will be breaking down stigmas and feelings of shame around Sexual and Reproductive Health. We will be sharing stories that youth submitted to us about their experiences. 

[00:15:29] Amal: Thanks for listening to SHE SOARS. If you liked this episode, please share it on social media, connect with us in the comments or give us a like.

[00:15:37] Lauren: Make sure to catch our next episode by subscribing to our channel and following us wherever you get your podcasts.

[00:15:43] Madeline: Follow @carecanada on Instagram for updates on our show and the project.

[00:15:48] Lauren: SHE SOARS stands for Sexual and reproductive Health and Economic empowerment supporting Out-of-school Adolescent girls’ Rights and Skills in Kenya, Uganda and Zambia.

[00:15:58] Madeline: The project is funded by Global Affairs Canada. Check out our global partner organizations:

[00:16:03] Amal: Youth Coalition for Sexual and Reproductive Rights, the Center for Reproductive Rights and Restless Development for even more project updates.

[00:16:12] Lauren: Thanks again for listening. Until next time!